Three valley school districts increase teacher pay, benefits

May 31, 2017 02:45PM
● Published by Travis Barton

Those attending the Association Representative meeting for Granite School District in April wave the newly presented salary schedule that had to later be approved by the district board. (Granite Education Association/Cindy Formeller).

Three school districts—Granite, Canyons and Jordan—have increased
teachers’ pay for the upcoming school year, in an effort to retain and hire
enough teachers for growing classrooms in the valley.

Granite
School District

Even if every graduate with a teaching degree from Utah colleges
and universities chose to stay and teach in Utah, there still wouldn’t be
enough to fill classrooms across the state, said Ben Horsley, communications director
for Granite School District.

“The reality is that we’ve been in a teacher shortage crisis for
quite some time. Granite District has been fortunate that we’ve been able to
almost 100 percent staff the last two years,” Horsley said. “Our board feels
strongly that every kid deserves a great, instructional leader, a full-time
teacher that is there and committed to that class for the full year.”

However, as the district looked into hiring for the coming year,
they found they had about half the applications they would typically receive,
and would be short around 100 needed hires to fill positions across the
district, he said. The board looked at their options, and seeing that Jordan
and Canyons districts were looking to raise their pay as well, decided to make
changes.

The increases include the starting salary going up to $41,000
annually, which includes a 3 percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) across
the board for all teachers and administrators. The board also added an 8.67
percent market adjustment to salary schedule across the board, making it the
11.67 percent increase for all in the district, Horsley said.

He said the district does anticipate some sort of tax increase
through the local levy to offset the costs. The board is looking at any other cuts
they can make to pursue other funds, and will use the 4 percent increase in the
Weighted Pupil Unit (WPU) from the legislature to help with increase, as well
as increase in levy.

The legislature funds
education through the WPU, which is money from the general PACs fund from the
state, and that money is given to state districts to pay teachers, fund
programs and other needs. Whatever increase the WPU goes up to each year—currently
4 percent—is what teachers can typically expect to negotiate as a raise amount
each year.

As for the increase in the local levy, “it would be anywhere from
$75 to $100 on a $250,000 home within Granite School District (boundaries),”
Horsley said.

It isn’t just about increasing pay because it’s fair, said Susen
Zobel, Granite Education Association president and a seventh-grade history
teacher at Bonneville Junior High. It’s about keeping teachers in the districts
they work in, while continuing to hire.

“What Granite did was honor the existing salary schedule and send
it all the way across, so every single teacher will see an increase,” Zobel
said. “This is a good start, we’ve got a really great salary schedule, if you
look at the schedule and starting and where you could retire, it is more
comparable to other professional salary schedules. I would hope they keep this
momentum up.”

Other states pay at higher rates, even with increases in these
districts, meaning that districts in Utah need to be competitive, Zobel said.

“If we are going to get teachers to come, we need to be
competitive and Granite has made a great start. Our school board has done an
amazing job to make this happen for us this year, but it’s not over,” Zobel
said. “I think that this shows what a good working relationship between a
teacher’s association and a school district can do to benefit teachers, that
regardless this was a collaborative effort between the association and the
school district and without that strength of membership in the association, it
would not have happened.”

Since the presentation and then official approval of the pay
increase this spring, the loss of contracted teachers has slowed significantly,
and many who opted out of contracts have come back to the district, Horsley
said.

Canyons
School District

Pay increases were approved for Canyons School District on April
25, with increases for beginning teacher’s salaries going to $40,500, said Jeff
Haney, director of communications for Canyons School District. Every licensed
educator in the district will receive at least a 4 percent increase, though the
average increase is at 6.5 percent for teachers across the board, according to
their teaching experience and education.

“The Board of Education believes, and always has believed, it’s
important to invest in the district’s people. The reason for that is that we
believe the students will benefit, we want our classrooms to be led by the best
and the brightest educators that we can attract and retain, especially in this
era of a national teacher shortage,” Haney said.

Along with these pay increases to create a competitive pay
schedule, the Canyons District has been working to make sure that other
benefits are clear to potential educators since the district creation in 2009,
he said. Since voters approved a $250 million bond to renovate and build new
schools, the district has almost completed all 13 projects identified in 2010.
A new middle school and elementary school will open this upcoming fall, Haney
said. Achievement coaches and technology specialists are also at every school
in the district to improve the teaching experience, he said.

As for how the increases will be paid for by the district, taxes
aren’t expected to go up as an increase in the local levy.

“The law governing countywide equalization sunsets at the end of
2017. Under the parameters of this law, and because of increasing assessed
valuations, Canyons District expects the certified tax rate to remain virtually
unchanged in order to collect the funds necessary to operate the district at
the same level of service while also providing a salary increase for teachers,”
Haney said.

Potential teachers from the valley and elsewhere were instantly
interested in applying for Canyons District positions when they heard about the
increases in the starting salary, he said.

“The students will benefit from this. The vision of the Canyons
School District is to make sure that every student graduates college and career
ready, and the way to do that is to have amazing teachers in every classroom,
in every grade level,” he said. “This new salary schedule will help us attract
the best and the brightest to our classrooms.”

Jordan School District

Jordan School District is no different from others in Utah looking
to constantly fill teacher positions, and with their newly approved salary
schedule they are hoping to continue to attract quality employees.

Negotiations for a new salary schedule in the district began with
a committee of five teachers from the Jordan Education Association, two
administrators and three board members that met every other week through
February. The new salary schedule has been officially approved by the Jordan
Education Association and the district board, said Janice Voorhies, president of
the Jordan School District Board of Education.

The beginning salary has been raised to $40,000 a year, and every
teacher on the scale has been moved up through the schedule from that, Voorhies
said, effective for the upcoming fall.

“We are working on a phase two for our experienced teachers with
the Jordan Education Association, and our goal is to increase compensation for
them through a menu of things they may already be doing or would like to opt
into, like mentoring or teacher leadership or curriculum development,” she
said, “and we’ll pay them more for that.”

Another change the board approved was to take away a cap in the
salary schedule, so that experienced teachers can now continue to get increased
compensation after 15 years of teaching. The district will also be paying for
increases in benefits costs for teachers in the coming school year.

To pay for the increases, the district has adjusted their budget
and are “applying a portion of our unassigned resources to increasing teacher
pay for the next several years,” Voorhies said. “Additionally, we appreciate
the legislature’s generous WPU allotment this past session and we intend to use
those taxpayer dollars very carefully in order to continue to support reasonable
compensation for all employees.”